10 Tips To A More Professional LinkedIn Profile

Regardless of whether you are in business, trying to put your startup on the map, new to the working world or focus mostly on non-profit work, LinkedIn is a very good networking tool to help you achieve your professional goals.

A hunting ground for headhunters, HR managers and new businesses looking for partners or opportunities, it will do you good to have a professional LinkedIn profile set up, to let you take advantage of this.

Unlike on Facebook, where profiles could be made up and are more suitable for personal networking rather than a professional one, LinkedIn encourages users to provide a highly professional look to their resume and/or profile on the networking site. Here are 10 things you can do to enhance your LinkedIn profile for a more professional look.

Unlike on Facebook, where profiles could be made up and are more suitable for personal networking rather than a professional one, LinkedIn encourages users to provide a highly professional look to their resume and/or profile on the networking site. Here are 10 things you can do to enhance your LinkedIn profile for a more professional look.

1. A Detailed Profile is A Strong Profile

A LinkedIn profile is similar to a work resume, where you display your past education information, work experience, skills, current work position and profile picture. You can follow LinkedIn’s Profile Completion Tips when editing your profile.

Besides that, adding a profile headline and summary would be real helpful to make an impression. The headline gives yourself a professional ‘identity’, a front that may or may not showcase some of the more detailed parts of your profile, hidden away from viewers who are not connected to you. A summary would bring out your personality which can complement your Curriculum Vitae (CV) if an employer were to view your profile.

It’s also important to use keywords in your headline, summary and throughout your entire profile. The keywords could consist of your main passion or profession and will help your LinkedIn profile turn up more often on search engine results.

2. Temporarily Turn Off Activity Broadcast

If you’ve had LinkedIn for a while and have already connected with people, updating your profile will fill their feed and your ‘Wall’ with update notices. This means that if you happen to choose to update your LinkedIn with ‘old details’, for instance, if you are finally coming out as the HR manager that you are, your connections will think that you’ve only gotten the job recently.

By turning off your activity broadcast temporarily, you can silently update your LinkedIn profile without letting the world know.

To do this, go to ‘Settings’, and under ‘Privacy Controls’, you should be able to see ‘Turn on/off your activity broadcasts’.

Click on that and another overlay window will appear allowing you to uncheck the option. After saving these changes, other users won’t be able to see every detailed profile update you’ve made. You can choose to leave it off or turn it on after you’re done editing.

3. Proofread Your Entire Profile

Just like any other thing used in the professional world, you wouldn’t want your LinkedIn profile to have any sort of grammatical or spelling errors. You should also word your profile summary and important information effectively so that it is communicated to the reader without confusing them (something learnt from communication school).

Try putting yourself in the eyes of the reader and see if you understand what your profile is about. It may also be helpful to have someone screen through your profile for a second opinion or to point out any errors that you may have missed out. Basically, treat it like how you would treat a job resume.

4. Do Not Lie About Anything

We don’t want to sound like your mother, but lying is not tolerated in the professional world, especially when you can easily get caught. This is also true for information on your LinkedIn profile with details like your education and job history.

Not only is it very easy to check and confirm just about anything on the Internet, it is also a sign of how ethical (or non-ethical) you are. Appearing untrustworthy is never good for business.

5. Customize Your Profile URL

By default, your LinkedIn profile URL will consist of random alphanumerical characters. However, you can elect to have a customized profile URL by going to Settings > Edit Public Profile > Customize Your Public Profile URL.

Pick the name you would like to display on your vanity URL. Your profile URL will bear your name, something like ‘linkedin.com/in/JackDoe’. You can even take it a step further by making sure that your vanity URL for LinkedIn, Facebook and Google Plus are all the same, for added coverage.